


coda

by ghosthunter



Series: side effects include [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Mpreg, honest to god labor and delivery and nursing and child rearing, mea culpa mea maxima culpa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 08:23:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15577773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosthunter/pseuds/ghosthunter
Summary: “I wanna live in DC,” Mike says. “After I retire. Even if you’re not playing here, maybe it could be… I don’t know, our place. Where we met. Maybe that’s stupid.”“Even if I’m not playing here,” Nicke says.“Well, you live in Sweden in the offseason,” Mike says. “But if we - you know, if we decide we wanna… have kids, you know, we’d want to be together, right?”





	coda

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you can't get something out of your mind so you just do it to get rid of it and happy fuckin' birthday to yourself, ya know? thanks to s. for cheerleading and j. for beta you ARE the best support team a dumb bitch could ask for.
> 
> THERE IS DUBCON I'M SORRY IT'S THE NATURE OF A/B/O, please see the end notes for more detail if you're so inclined. or skip section 5.
> 
> there is also a lot of talk about pregnancy and labor and delivery and nursing and all that, 'cause it's folks having babies, and most of it is not sexy. shrug emoji.

**i. home**  
Mike buys a house in DC.

He’s still playing in Detroit, but he keeps having injuries, and he knows that maybe his time in the league is getting shorter. Nicke’s the only one he shares the plan with - Nicke is contracted in DC through 2021, and he’s younger than Mike anyway, so it’s more likely that he’ll still be playing when Mike calls it quits.

Then again, Nicke is only contracted through 2021, and he’s a worrier.

“What if I get traded?” Nicke asks. “Or they decide not to re-sign me when my contract is up?”

“Shut up,” Mike says, and literally puts his hand over Nicke’s face, shoving him to the other side of the couch. “Oh no, I’m Nick Backstrom, I’m an amazing hockey player and just helped my team win a Stanley Cup, they’re totally going to get rid of me everyone hates me, blah blah.”

“Fuck off,” Nicke says, lifting his legs up and putting his feet against Mike’s hip, pushing him farther away.

“I wanna live in DC,” Mike says. “After I retire. Even if you’re not playing here, maybe it could be… I don’t know, our place. Where we met. Maybe that’s stupid.”

“Even if I’m not playing here,” Nicke says.

“Well, you live in Sweden in the offseason,” Mike says. “But if we - you know, if we decide we wanna… have kids, you know, we’d want to be together, right?”

“Do you want to have kids with me?” Nicke asks. His face feels a little hot.

“I mean. Not right this second,” Mike says. “But one day, I ... I mean, I want kids. But we could adopt, if you don’t want to - I mean, you’re an Omega, so you could, but I know not every Omega wants to carry, so like.”

“Mike, stop babbling,” Nicke says. “One day. When I’m done playing. If I can.”

“We can adopt, if you can’t,” Mike says. Nicke smiles, and moves back across the couch, on his knees next to Mike on the cushions. He leans in and wraps his arms around Mike’s shoulders, leaning down to kiss him.

“I love you,” Nicke says, pulling back, looking down at Mike.

“I love you too,” Mike says. He wraps his arms around Nicke, pulls him down, presses his nose against the soft space just beneath Nicke’s ear. “You smell so good right now. Even if I can smell Andre on you.”

“God, I miss you,” Nicke says, tipping his head, shifting his hands and digging his fingers into the muscles at the top of Mike’s shoulders. “Don’t talk to me about him. He’s my Alpha for now, but he’s not you.”

“Yeah?” Mike says, moving his hands down to Nicke’s waist, then down to his ass. “Am I better?”

“You know me better than anyone,” Nicke says. “He’s my Alpha for now. You’re my Alpha for always.”

“Mine,” Mike says.

“Yours,” Nicke says, and smiles, leaning in and putting his mouth back on Mike’s.

 

 **ii. concussion protocol**  
Ovi’s hosting a barbecue at the beginning of the season, and Nicke’s surprised to see Marcus there. Nicke hasn’t seen Marcus a lot since he was traded. What he does know is that Marcus had a hard time his first year out, and has had another couple of head injuries since, and lost most of the year before to a concussion.

Mike is there with Nicke, having missed the end of his last season and decided that it was better to retire than to lose his mobility or end up paralyzed from another injury. Mike is retiring, Ovi keeps talking about retiring at the end of the season, and Nicke hasn’t talked to Marcus yet, but he thinks Marcus has called it quits, too.

He finally catches Marcus sitting alone in one of Ovi’s rooms, curled up on a couch, looking at his phone, half asleep.

“You giving it up?” Nicke asks, dropping onto the sofa next to him. Marcus startles, then looks up at him, blinking.

“It took me six months to feel normal after the last concussion,” Marcus says. “Some days I still don’t feel quite normal. So you know. Seems like the right time.”

“That’s how Mike feels about it,” Nicke says. “I don’t know. I’m glad I can keep playing.”

“I’m glad you can, too,” Marcus says. He reaches over and squeezes Nicke’s hand. “It’s good. I hope you play until you’re fifty, like Jagr.”

“Oh, fuck no. My limbs will all fall off before I get that old if I keep playing,” Nicke says with a laugh.

“You really think that Ovi is gonna retire?” Marcus asks. He turns slightly, pulling one leg up onto the couch.

“Nah, he’s said that at the beginning of the season for the last three years,” Nicke says. “Who knows if he will or won’t.”

“You gonna be captain when he goes? If he goes?” Marcus asks.

“Nah,” Nicke says. “I don’t want it. It’ll go to Kuzy.”

Marcus smiles then, and Nicke can’t help but smile at the look on Marcus’s face. Marcus may have gotten traded, but he still wants good things for Kuzy. Like he’s heard someone say his name, Kuzy appears in the doorway.

“Hey,” he says, coming in and walking over to the couch. He leans down and presses a kiss into Marcus’s hair, and Nicke watches him inhale. Nicke wonders what Marcus smells like to Kuzy, his Alpha. Nicke wonders if Kuzy gets upset when he smells Marcus’s Devils Alpha on him, the way Mike does. If Kuzy gets jealous.

“Hi,” Marcus says.

“Is your head hurting?” Kuzy asks, concerned. His fingers brush over the hair at the back of Marcus’s neck.

“Not really,” Marcus says. “Everything was just too loud. I didn’t want it to end up that way.”

Nicke frowns when he hears that. This is why Marcus is retiring. They all knew what could happen to them coming in, but Nicke hates to see it. Kuzy says something in Russian, most of it words that Nicke doesn’t recognize. Marcus shakes his head, looking up at Kuzy, and he responds. It’s in Russian, stilted, but still in Russian. Nicke wonders if Kuzy has learned Swedish in the same way.

“If you change your mind, I’m out back with Sasha,” Kuzy says.

“Okay,” Marcus says, looking up at him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Nicke asks, after Kuzy leaves.

Marcus shrugs. “If it were really okay, I wouldn’t feel like I needed to stop,” Marcus says. Nicke sighs, because he gets it. He knows what concussions are like. He hasn’t had as many as Marcus, and he counts himself lucky.

“Jesus, man,” Nicke says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“I just have to figure out what I’m gonna do,” Marcus says.

“Are you gonna stay here in DC?” Nicke asks.

“I don’t know,” Marcus says, like he’s playing coy. Nicke’s pretty sure that Marcus will probably stay.

“I’m moving into Mike’s place,” Nicke says.

“Like you haven’t already?” Marcus asks, and smiles, his grin turning mischievous. Nicke leans forward and pushes him gently.

“Fuck off,” he says.

“Are you going to wait until you retire to have your bonding ceremony? Or is that next summer?” Marcus asks. Nicke blushes.

“Neither of us has asked,” Nicke admits.

“You two are a _mess_ ,” Marcus says. He pushes himself to his feet then. “I’m gonna go find something to drink.”

“I’ll come with you,” Nicke says. “Make sure Mike isn’t letting Ovi get him into trouble.”

Marcus laughs and turns off the lights as they walk out of the room.

 

 **iii. breakup**  
Nicke likes having Marcus back in DC, and they go out to dinner like old times. Well, except now Marcus is retired and Nicke has Mike back and Andre gets pissy about going to dinner with them because he’s used to being Nicke’s Alpha.

“Go bother someone else,” Nicke says. “Mike is my partner. You’re just an Alpha.”

“That’s mean,” Andre says, pouting at them. Nicke’s pretty sure he can hear Marcus’s eyes rolling.

“It’s not me trying to be mean,” Nicke says. “You don’t have a claim on me any more than Ovi does.”

“Okay, that’s stretching it,” Marcus says. “Ovi has a claim on a lot of people.”

“I mean it in the strictest sense of dynamic,” Nicke says. “Nobody expects you to offer yourself up to your old Alpha when Jersey comes to town.”

“I feel a little bit like chopped liver, Nicke,” Andre says.

“Oh shut up,” Nicke says. “Literally everyone loves you.”

“Not me,” Marcus says. “I hate you.”

“Jojo,” Andre says, and pouts like he almost believes it. Marcus stares at him, keeping a straight face. “No, why do you hate me? What did I do?”

“Why is it so easy for him to fuck with you?” Nicke asks. “You’d think that after this long you’d just know that he’s literally just saying shit to fuck with you.”

“It was _mean_ ,” Andre protests.

“I’m just trying to keep things real for you,” Marcus says. “Since everyone loves you and nobody is ever mean to you. Keeps your head from getting too big.”

“The point is,” Nicke says. “You’ll find someone you’re meant to be with. But you know that person was never me.”

“I know,” Andre says, and sighs. “But I’ll miss you.”

“I’m not going anywhere?” Nicke says, and frowns at him.

“You know what I mean,” Andre says. Nicke narrows his eyes, and Marcus is trying to stifle a laugh.

“I don’t like what you’re implying,” Nicke says. “And you should never do it again.”

Andre laughs at that, and Nicke thinks that things will be okay.

 

 **iv. expectations**  
Nicke’s about three days out from his heat and Mike can’t keep his hands off him. It’s not normal, in the sense that Mike hasn’t been around much for Nicke’s heats the past few years. If Mike comes up behind Nicke to scent him while Nicke is finishing getting ready for a party - one that he’s obligated to go to - then, well, Nicke isn’t going to complain.

It does make them late to the party when they both have to have a second shower before leaving the house.

The party is in full swing by the time Nicke and Mike arrive, which isn’t surprising, because they’re nearly an hour late. Ovi immediately wrangles Mike into a game that they’re playing, which Nicke thinks is a terrible idea. Kuzy is one of the other players, so Nicke guesses Ovi probably won’t drink them all to death, or Kuzy wouldn’t be playing.

“Is your better half not here?” Nicke asks, yelling over the noise of Dima’s attempt to cheat and Ovi noisily calling him out. Marcus and Kuzy have been practically glued together since Marcus retired and moved back to DC to be with Kuzy.

“I’m the better half,” Kuzy says, looking at Nicke seriously. Then he grins. “No, he’s here. He went to be somewhere quieter. He said something about Sasha’s yelling piercing his eardrums.”

“He’s a delicate flower,” Nicke says.

“Sasha is _very_ loud,” Kuzy says. Ovi breaks off mid-sentence and turns to Kuzy, making a pouting face. He looks like an idiot.

“You look like an idiot when you do that,” Nicke tells him.

“You always so mean to me, Backy,” Ovi says, frowning.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if I wasn’t,” Nicke says. Ovi shrugs, because it’s true.

Nicke brushes a kiss across Mike’s cheek. “I’ll be back,” he says, and wanders off to find Marcus.

Nicke finds him in one of Ovi’s guest rooms, curled up on his side, asleep. Nicke feels a pang of worry, and goes over, shaking his shoulder gently, until Marcus opens his eyes and blinks up at Nicke sleepily.

“Is your head that bad? That you’re sleeping during Ovi’s parties?” Nicke asks him. Marcus grimaces at him, then sits up, running a hand over his hair to smooth it down.

“It’s not my head really,” Marcus says. “I just haven’t been feeling well. I thought about staying home, but I was feeling okay earlier. Better than I had been, so. Now I’m mostly just tired.”

“You’re old and boring now,” Nicke says. Marcus laughs.

“Ovi’s drinking games do give me a headache, though,” he says. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the holiday season. I wasn’t prepared.”

The Capitals have a lot of parties during the holidays. Birthday parties, holiday parties, celebrating Christmas, celebrating New Year’s, celebrating Russian Orthodox Christmas - which, at least, is one he can get out of most of the time.

He figures it out on Christmas Eve.

They’re all at Nicke and Mike’s, and Marcus is sitting on the couch talking to Mike, holding a glass of wine in his hand. And Nicke realizes that he doesn’t think he’s seen Marcus take a single drink from it, and Nicke himself definitely hasn’t re-filled it.

He remembers Marcus saying he hadn’t been feeling well, but it wasn’t his head. That he was tired. And now he’s not drinking. Nicke wants to kick him for keeping secrets, but Nicke also doesn’t want to say anything in front of everyone in the living room.

Once the party starts to wind down, and people start to go home, Nicke corners Marcus in the kitchen. “You lied to me” Nicke says, accusingly. Marcus stares at him, confused.

“What?” he asks.

“When we were at Ovi’s, you said you weren’t feeling well and you were coming down with something,” Nicke says.

“It wasn’t _technically_ a lie,” Marcus says, and he ducks his head so that he’s not looking at Nicke. He’s blushing. “I wasn’t feeling well. I did come down with something.”

“Something that takes about nine months to go away?” Nicke asks. Marcus blushes even more and crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back against Nicke’s counter. Nicke looks at him, then. He must not be far along, the sweater he’s wearing still flat over his abdomen.

“Look,” Marcus says. “Don’t say anything to anyone. We haven’t known that long, and we’re not. We’re not ready to tell people.”

“Can I tell Mike?” Nicke asks.

“Can Mike keep his mouth shut?” Marcus asks.

“Debatable,” Nicke says.

Marcus and Kuzy are the last to leave Nicke’s, walking hand in hand down Nicke’s front walk to Marcus’s car. Nicke locks the door behind them, and goes into the kitchen to find Mike halfheartedly cleaning up.

“We’ll clean up tomorrow,” Nicke says, wrapping his arms around Mike.

“Tomorrow’s Christmas,” Mike says.

“It’s fine, Mike,” Nicke says, determined.

Later, in bed, Nicke leans his head on Mike’s chest, traces his fingers over the black lines of Mike’s tattoos. Mike’s fingers tangle in Nicke’s hair, and he rubs gently at Nicke’s scalp.

“I’m excited to have kids with you one day,” Nicke says quietly, after a while. He’s not even sure Mike is awake anymore.

“Yeah?” Mike says after a moment. “I think you’ll be a really great dad.”

“I wouldn’t want to have kids with anyone else,” Nicke says.

“What brought all of this up?” Mike asks.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Nicke says, propping himself up slightly. “But Jojo.”

“Him and Kuzy?” Mike asks. “I wondered why he smelled so weird. Like, not normal.”

“You can smell it?” Nicke asks.

“I mean, Omegas have their normal smell,” Mike says. “So your scent would change if you got pregnant. Not a lot, but I’m familiar with you, so I’d notice.”

“So more people probably know than they think?” Nicke says.

“I mean, I didn’t know why it was different until you told me,” Mike says. “That’s good for them, though. They’re cute. It’s a little gross.”

Nicke laughs, and puts his head back down on Mike’s chest.

 

 **v. rut**  
Nicke decides he wants to go out on a high note. And if he and Ovi win one last Cup together, then that’s the note he wants to go out on. They didn’t come in together, but they retire together. Ovi’s number is gonna hang in the rafters forever, Nicke knows.

Nicke goes to the doctor not long after he makes the decision, because he knows what he wants - and it doesn’t matter if his jersey is in the rafters.

The doctor tells him it can take time. He’s been on birth control for years, so it can take time for everything to work out of his system, and while Omegas can and are extremely fertile, for people like Nicke who have spent years pushing their bodies to extremes and pumping them full of chemicals, it can take time.

The doctor doesn’t warn him what’s going to happen as soon as Mike is able to detect the change in Nicke’s hormones.

Nicke is used to Mike coming in from somewhere and putting his arms around Nicke, pressing his nose below Nicke’s ear, or burying his face into Nicke’s hair. He does it a lot when Nicke’s close to heat.

What he’s not used to is Mike whispering how good Nicke smells, how Nicke has never smelled so good to him before. He’s not used to Mike’s hands sliding into his pants right there in their kitchen. Nicke’s into Mike, but it’s the fucking kitchen.

“Hey,” Nicke says, twisting around in Mike’s arms, pulling Mike’s hands out of his pants. Mike’s hard, pressed against him.

“You’ve never smelled so good to me before,” Mike tells him, his body crowding Nicke’s back against the cabinets. “I wanna knot you. I want to right now.”

“Babe, I’m not in heat,” Nicke says. He’s never been knotted outside of heat. It’s a little painful when he is in heat, and he’s not really sure that he wants Mike to do it now.

“Please,” Mike says, and he’s nuzzling his face against Nicke’s neck, breathing hard, all lips and teeth against Nicke’s skin. “I want to bite you. Mark you.”

Mike has never marked him before. That has never been on the table between them, even though they’ve been mates for years, and paired for even longer. Nicke is just not the marking type. He knows people who are - hell, Marcus and Kuzy are, and were even when they were both on the team - but that’s not him.

“Mike,” Nicke says. “You’re being weird.”

“Nicke,” Mike says. He’s fully hard, pressed against Nicke. “You’ve never, ever smelled like this before.”

“I’m off birth control,” Nicke says, remembering. “Remember? Enough of it must finally be out of my system.”

“Holy fuck, this is what you smell like off of it?” Mike asks. He’s breathing Nicke in again, almost panting.

“You’re not usually like this,” Nicke says.

“Come upstairs with me,” Mike says. “Let me fuck you. Let me knot you.”

“You’re going to hurt me,” Nicke says.

“No,” Mike tells him. “You’re made to take it. You’re made for me.”

It’s total Alpha bullshit, and Nicke knows it, but he lets Mike get him upstairs anyway. Mike is half-crazed with how turned on he is, barely taking the time to strip out of his own clothes. Nicke is the one who forces him to slow down, forces him to get the lube and finger Nicke open, to get him ready because he’s not in heat.

When Mike fucks him, it skirts the line between being pleasurable and painful, between being good and being too much. Nicke comes, but Mike isn’t done with him, and was clearly not joking about knotting him. Nicke gasps when it happens - it’s actually painful, instead of the pleasure-pain that he normally feels. Mike seems half-drunk, whispering about how much he loves Nicke, how good he smells, how Nicke is his, all his.

They basically don’t leave the bed for the next twelve hours. Nicke is sore and covered in come, exhausted, wrung out physically and emotionally.

For his part, Mike apologizes. “I don’t know what happened,” Mike says. “I just. I needed. I couldn’t help it. It was like when you’re in heat, and you’re begging.”

Nicke doesn’t like to admit that sometimes, when he’s in heat, he needs it so badly he begs. But he does.

Mike is working with the Capitals, talking about a potential position with the coaching staff, so Nicke heads to the practice rink with him, and ends up going out for lunch with Marcus, his daughter in tow.

“You look beat,” Marcus says to him as he’s trying to wrangle the baby into a high chair while she squirms. She turned two over the summer, has red hair she got from Kuzy and round cheeks she got from Marcus, and she’s mad that she has been removed from making faces at Kuzy while he’s practicing with the rest of the team. Marcus, for his part, is unfazed by her squirming and babbling. He’s used to it.

“I’m tired,” Nicke says. “Sore. I haven’t been this tired and sore since - well, ever. I’ve been less tired after Cup runs.”

Marcus laughs. “What happened?” he asks. The baby has a child’s menu and crayons, and is determinedly throwing the crayons back at Marcus when he hands them to her. She has good aim.

“So, you know Mike and I are planning on - you know, trying to start a family,” Nicke says, trying to say it delicately, but he can also feel his face getting hot. “So I went to the doctor, and I’m off birth control, and - “

“Oh,” Marcus says. “Did your doctor not tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Nicke asks.

“That once your hormones got back to normal Mike would rut?” Marcus said. “It’s basically the fucking - “ He covers his mouth, and glances at his kid, but she’s busy gnawing on the crayon now. He stops to look at her for a second. “Really?” he asks her, then reaches out and takes the crayons away from her.

“That was a rut?” Nicke asks.

“I mean, I don’t know, but I know that my doctor was like, hey, you’re paired, your mate is probably going to react to your level of hormones and this is probably going to happen,” Marcus says. “It sucked.”

“Is it always going to be like that?” Nicke asks. Marcus shrugs.

“I don’t know,” Marcus tells him. “It really only happened to us once, then on my next heat I got pregnant with her.” He reaches out and runs his hand over the baby’s curls. She reaches out and grabs at his hand, babbling at him in what Nicke’s pretty sure is a mixture of Swedish and Russian. Nicke only understands maybe every sixth word, but when Marcus responds to her, he does it in Swedish.

“Why is everything about our biology so much easier for you than it is for me?” Nicke asks. “That’s bullshit, I want to lodge a complaint.”

Marcus laughs at him.

 

Mike’s next rut happens to coincide with Nicke’s heat. Nicke’s not sure if his heat triggers it, or if it would have just happened that way, but Nicke being in heat really changes his perspective on rut. Since all Mike wants is to mark him and knot him, and all Nicke wants is to be knotted - he still doesn’t want to be marked, but knotted, yes please - their desires are aligned.

This time, when Nicke’s heat breaks the two of them are wrung out, their sheets soaked in sweat and come. Nicke knows they need to get up, shower, and get back to their lives, but he’s tired.

“How long do you think it’ll be before we know?” Mike whispers to him. It’s still dark out, and Nicke has no idea what time it is. He wants to sleep.

“I don’t know,” Nicke says. “The doctor told me it could take a while, just because of what I’ve done with my body. Maybe it won’t happen this time.”

“I hope it does,” Mike says. “I want to have a family with you. Sooner, rather than later.”

“I know,” Nicke whispers, and presses his mouth to Mike’s.

 

 **vi. try**  
Nicke is frustrated.

It’s been over a year of trying. It’s not happening. They’ve seen a specialist - both of them. Mike is normal. Nicke is less fertile than the average Omega, but it doesn’t mean that he’s not. It’s just not happening. The doctors offer treatments, they offer alternatives.

Nicke just wants to start a family with Mike.

The latest agreement is, if Nicke goes in six weeks after his next heat and isn’t pregnant, they’ll consider treatment. It hasn’t happened before now, and Nicke’s not confident it’s going to happen this time. He resigns himself to whatever treatment they’re going to recommend.

When his heat breaks, he ends up overwhelmed, turns his face into the pillows, and cries, frustrated. Mike doesn’t say anything, just wraps his arms around Nicke and holds on. This is what they wanted - what they talked about for years before they were retired, before they were retired, before they lived in the same place. Mike strokes Nicke’s hair and holds onto him, lets him cry until he’s exhausted, until they both fall asleep.

The day of his six week appointment, he gets a cup of coffee - decaf, just in case - and goes to the practice rink to kill time before his appointment that afternoon. Mike’s supposed to go with him, so he rides in with Mike, and they’ll go together.

“What are you drinking?” Marcus asks him, when Nicke sits down next to him. Marcus’s daughter is several rows ahead of them, watching practice intently. “It smells fucking horrible.”

“It’s just coffee,” Nicke says, and takes a sip, shrugging. Nicke actually hears the gagging noise Marcus makes.

“Can you keep an eye on her for a second?” he asks, and then gets up and leaves. There’s not really anything to watch, because hockey practice keeps Marcus’s daughter pretty occupied now that she’s old enough to start understanding what’s happening.

Nicke kicks Marcus in the ankle when he comes back. “You’re fucking pregnant again, aren’t you?” Nicke means it to come out joking, but it actually comes out with heat. Marcus’s face is already pale, but he looks at Nicke, startled. “Mackan, no, I didn’t mean it like that. This whole thing has been so frustrating for me. I’m just. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

“That’s why I didn’t want to say anything,” Marcus says. “I didn’t know - seriously, can you put your coffee over there or something? I don’t know what that is, but I’m going to die.”

Nicke actually laughs at that, and he does put his coffee down on his other side, away from Marcus. Marcus reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezing it hard.

“It’s gonna happen,” he says. “I know it will.”

“I hope so,” Nicke says, squeezing back.

 

They do both a urine test and a blood test on Nicke, just to be sure. It’s not so early that a urine test wouldn’t show the pregnancy, if there was one. Nicke is squeezing Mike’s hand so hard while they wait that when he lets go for a second, he notices Mike flexing his hand, trying to stretch it out.

The doctor comes in and sits down with them. “I’d like to do an ultrasound today,” he tells them. “Just so we can check on everything, make sure everything is okay.”

“Wait,” Mike says. “You mean - “

“I’m pregnant,” Nicke says.

“Congratulations,” the doctor says, smiling.

This time, it’s Mike who bursts into tears, wrapping his arms around Nicke and pressing damp kisses all over Nicke’s stunned face. Nicke doesn’t know how to react, even when they get up and go down the hallway and he gets to hear the baby’s heart beating alongside his for the first time.

The doctor sends them on their way with instructions, vitamins for Nicke to pick up, and a screenshot of the first look at the blob that’s going to be their baby. Nicke snaps a photo of it and texts it to Marcus with the message _don’t tell ANYONE yet_.

Marcus texts back _that coffee this morning better have been decaf_ , making Nicke laugh.

That night, Nicke and Mike curl up next to each other in bed. Mike asks, “do you think he’ll play hockey, like us?”

“What if it’s a girl?” Nicke asks.

“She can play hockey, too,” Mike says. He leans over and kisses Nicke on the cheek. “Do we hyphenate with my name first, or your name first?”

“We have so much time to decide that,” Nicke says. “But alphabetically…”

“Baby Backstrom-Green,” Mike says. “Or Baby Green-Backstrom.”

Nicke makes a non-committal noise. “I think it sounds better with my name first,” Nicke says. “Omega usually comes first in a hyphenate, anyway.”

“Because when they drop the hyphenate, they take the second name,” Mike says. “Are you gonna be okay with your baby just being Baby Green, sometimes?”

“That sounds pretty okay, actually,” Nicke says, and smiles.

Mike rests his hand on Nicke’s abdomen, then, where their baby is growing, hopefully healthy. Nicke’s still all muscle, no indication that anything is different. He even smells the same to Mike. Nicke moves his hand to rest over the top of Mike’s, and Mike leans in and kisses him, soft and slow.

 

 **vii. waiting**  
Summer in DC is, on occasion, too hot for living.

It’s certainly too hot for being pregnant, which Nicke is finding out the hard way. Nothing makes him happy, nothing cools him off, he feels like a beached whale who can’t stop sweating and half the time he’s sending Mike to the store to get things for him just because otherwise Mike is annoying the shit out of him. Other alternatives include barging in on Marcus at 10 in the morning and spending half the day in his and Kuzy’s pool, because even though it’s hot and Nicke is a whale it’s better to be a whale in the water than just sweating somewhere else, even if it’s in the air conditioning.

Marcus is annoying him too, because Marcus isn’t interested in talking to Nicke as much as he’s interested in sleeping. “He sleeps, I sleep,” Marcus says, cradling his newborn against his chest, stretched out on a deck chair. His sunglasses are covering his face and an umbrella is covering most of him. Nicke knows from experience that Kuzy will come out and adjust the damn umbrella to make sure it’s still covering Marcus when he gets home from practice.

It’s gross and Nicke hates them. He’s pretty sure he would also hate them even if he weren’t totally fucking miserable, but he hates them because they’re cute and he’s also miserable.

But also, Nicke is intensely jealous that he’s still fucking pregnant and Marcus is just sitting there, holding on to his tiny, adorable little infant that is definitely outside his body and not kicking him constantly in the spleen, or the bladder, or any of his other organs.

“How did you survive this twice?” Nicke mutters, resting his arms on the edge of the pool and letting the rest of his body float. “It’s too hot for this.”

“I wish I could say it was better planning, but let’s be real, it wasn’t,” Marcus says. Nicke’s pretty sure he doesn’t even open his eyes. Not that Nicke could tell, because Marcus has sunglasses on. “Maybe if you have another one, only try during heats that will end with the most miserable months of your pregnancy during the winter.”

“You know,” Nicke says, “I really was just worried about whether it was even gonna happen.”

“I know,” Marcus says.

“Also sometimes, I feel like you got pregnant with him just to show off,” Nicke says. Marcus snorts, and it makes the baby gurgle and squirm. Marcus shifts and gets up, carrying his son with him as he walks over to dangle his legs in the water.

“Oh, this one was an accident,” Marcus says. He kicks his feet in the water and splashes Nicke in the face, even as he’s trying to get the baby to latch. “Wait until the baby is here and you never get any sleep because your friends come over and don’t respect the fact that you’re trying to sleep when the baby sleeps and oh also, I hope your nipples get chapped.”

“I hate you,” Nicke says.

“Oh, really?” Marcus says. “Then get out of my pool and go to your own home.”

“I’m too fat to drive,” Nicke whines at him.

Marcus almost falls in the pool laughing.

 

 **viii. baby**  
Nicke has done a lot of painful things in his life, but giving birth really takes the cake. He’s had broken bones and concussions and major surgery, and things that he thought were pretty fucking painful, but it was nothing like this. He’s never screamed like this. At anyone.

“How does anyone do this?” he whimpers at Mike, between contractions. Mike is wringing his hand, hoping that it’s not broken. “People do this multiple times. Mike. Mike I think I’m dying.”

“You’re not dying,” Mike says. Nicke grabs him by the wrist and pulls him down.

“You don’t fucking know, Michael. You do not. You don’t know,” Nicke tells him.

“Let them give you drugs,” Mike says, “and it would probably not be so bad. That’s why they have them, you know?”

“What if it goes bad?” Nicke says. “What if I get the headache? What if I’m allergic to it? Mike. What if - fucking Christ.”

Mike reaches out and takes hold of Nicke’s hand again, squeezing tightly as Nicke breathes through contractions. It’s another hour before Nicke caves and lets them give him the epidural, and then they’re just waiting until the doctor tells them Nicke’s ready to push.

It’s hours of labor, which feel like days for Nicke, before their daughter finally arrives. Mike cuts the cord, and they lay the baby in Nicke’s arms. Mike sits on the edge of the bed, brushing Nicke’s hair back. His eyes are full of tears.

“She’s perfect,” Nicke says, touching the baby’s tiny fingertips.

“You’re perfect,” Mike says, leaning down and kissing Nicke on the forehead.

They only get a few minutes with the baby before the doctors take her to clean her up. They also clean Nicke up, and move him into a room. Nicke is exhausted, and Mike sits on the bed next to him, stroking his hand over Nicke’s hair as he tries to nurse their daughter for the first time.

It’s not as easy as it looks, and the baby is fussy. Nicke fumbles a little, and there’s no way for Mike to help. Nicke does make Mike change the first diaper, which is a huge disaster that Nicke films with his phone while Mike is cursing and begging the Lord for forgiveness.

They struggle a little more after they get home - Nicke calls his mom in the middle of the night, and breaks down crying because he doesn’t think the baby is eating enough, but he gets her latched on a bottle fine and ends up falling asleep sitting on the kitchen floor, both of them tear-streaked and exhausted.

Switching to bottle feeding makes things a little easier. It means that Mike can do feedings in the middle of the night, so that it’s not just Nicke who has to get up. They both get a little bit more sleep.

Nicke is exhausted, but hopelessly in love. 

 

 **ix. second**  
They adopt their second child when Sophia is four years old. It’s not that they haven’t been trying. It was difficult the first time, and the second time, it just isn’t happening. They decide that, while they could definitely afford surrogacy as an option, adoption would be better.

He’s only hours old when they put him into Nicke’s arms, and Mike is holding Sophia so that she can look and see her little brother for the first time. Mike is smiling.

It’s perfect for approximately five minutes, until Sophia gets bored and decides that too much attention is being paid to the new baby. They’re trying, but the baby needs more attention, and Sophia is fiercely independent, the perfect product of her fathers. Nicke understands what life must have been like for his parents and coaches when he was young as he tries to raise her.

Kuzy’s captain for at least one more year, so the start-of-season party is at his house. Nicke is able to sit with the newborn while Mike throws their daughter shrieking into the pool over and over again. He ends up passing the baby to Kuzy, who murmurs to the baby in Russian. Nicke watches as Kuzy nudges Marcus’s calf with his bare foot.

“Absolutely not,” Marcus says, and drains the last of his beer before getting up, ruffling Kuzy’s hair as he walks away.

Tom has the baby next and is looking a little like he’s starting to decide he wants his own when Sophia comes running across the patio, prompting no fewer than three people to yell “no running!” as she skids to a stop next to Nicke.

“Papa,” she says, looking up at Nicke, who is, at this point, a couple of beers in and riding a pleasant buzz. “Papa. Daddy says Mishka can come stay with us tonight if you say it’s okay. And if his daddy says it’s okay.” She looks around the table, looking at Marcus for a brief second before looking back at Nicke. “Where’s Uncle Kuzy?”

Nicke has to stifle a laugh. His daughter is nothing if not a schemer, and she knows that if what she wants has anything to do with Mishka, her luck will be better asking Kuzy than Marcus, even with Marcus sitting right there.

“If Mishka’s dad says it’s okay,” Nicke says, and looks over at Marcus. “It’s fine.”

Sophia sprints away from the table before Marcus can even say anything. Nicke sighs dramatically.

“Why am I the bad cop?” Marcus asks.

“Because Kuzy is fun,” Tom says. “And you’re very serious.”

“Every single one of you knows that that’s not true,” Marcus says.

“In comparison to Kuzy,” Tom says. “You’re boring.”

“Ouch? Wow,” Marcus says. “Get out of my back yard. Zhenya!” He almost tips his chair over backwards leaning back to look for Kuzy. “I’m kicking your assistant captain out.”

“What did he do?” Kuzy asks, coming back to them with a towel around his shoulders and his shorts dripping. He’s got a beer in his hand, and he flicks stray ice shards at Marcus.

“Jesus,” Marcus says, reaching out to shove at Kuzy. “Stop that, or you can leave with him.” He looks up at Kuzy. “Am I boring?”

“Terribly,” Kuzy says, and sits down on Marcus’s lap, making Marcus grunt under his weight. He tips his bottle up against his lips. “But I love you anyway.”

“Oh thanks,” Marcus says. “Sophia is looking for you to ask you if Mishka can go home with them tonight. But since Maja has a game tomorrow I figure whatever. Someone else can deal with getting Mishka ready and we can only have to wrangle one kid out the door.”

“Wrangling her gear is like two kids,” Kuzy says. “Maja, Mishka, and Maja’s gear.”

“You guys let her be a goalie,” Nicke says.

“No, we didn’t _let_ her do anything,” Marcus says. “She’s good at it.”

“She’s eight, there’s still a chance,” Nicke says.

“No, it’s done,” Kuzy says. “She’s decided that she’s going to be a Vezina Award Winning Goalie - and I don’t know who taught her that, I cannot imagine she knows anyone who would teach her that.”

“She could play forward if she wanted,” Marcus says. “She can skate.”

“She doesn’t _want_ to,” Kuzy says. “My own child. A goalie!”

Kuzy flops back dramatically, which makes Marcus grunt, a little breathless. He kisses Kuzy on the side of the head and steals his beer.

“You should bring Sophia and Mishka down to the rink and we’ll all go skating after,” Kuzy says. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Nicke says. “It’ll be fun.”

“Get off of me, my leg is going numb,” Marcus says, shoving at Kuzy. Kuzy laughs and gets up, taking what’s left of his beer back and wandering away.

“I’m gonna go get something to eat,” Tom says, standing up, and holding out the baby toward Nicke.

“Here,” Marcus says, sitting up straighter. Tom hands the baby to him, instead, and he slouches back. Nicke raises an eyebrow at him.

“Kuzy’s not the only one who wants another one, is he,” Nicke says. Marcus makes a face and a non-committal noise.

“I don’t want to have another one,” Marcus says. “I’m too old to put my body through that again. But I think about it. So just let me snuggle this one for a minute.”

Nicke laughs. “You’re not even that old. You want me to grab you another beer?” he asks.

“Please,” Marcus says. “And a burger, if there’s any left.”

“You got it,” Nicke says, and wanders off.

 

 **x. +1**  
The game starts late and runs into overtime, so by the time Zhenya gets home, Marcus is already asleep, curled up on his side with a pillow clutched against his chest. The bedroom is lit by the street lamps from the outside, and Zhenya is familiar enough that he can strip down and climb into bed without turning on any lights.

Marcus stirs when Zhenya climbs into bed next to him, settling down beside him. He turns away from the pillow to wrap his arms around Zhenya instead.

“Did you win?” he asks sleepily, hooking an arm around Zhenya’s waist and leaning his head against Zhenya’s shoulder.

“Shootout,” Zhenya says. “Scored on them, though.”

“Good,” Marcus says. Zhenya’s not sure that he’s opened his eyes since Zhenya came in the room.

“When did you go to bed?” Zhenya asks, putting his phone down on the nightstand and bringing his other arm up to stroke his fingers through Marcus’s hair.

“I fell asleep during the second,” Marcus admits. “I don’t know when I turned it off and came upstairs.”

“Are you not feeling any better?” Zhenya asks.

“I’m tired,” Marcus says. “All I want to do is sleep.”

“And throw up,” Zhenya says. Marcus laughs, and nuzzles his face against Zhenya’s chest, scratching his beard against Zhenya’s skin.

“And that,” Marcus says.

“You’re gonna give me beard burn,” Zhenya says, and shifts them, pushing Marcus over and back onto the pillows. He leans down and rubs his own beard along Marcus’s neck, making him laugh and push at Zhenya.

Zhenya stops after a moment, then kisses him. Marcus makes a tiny noise in protest.

“What?” Zhenya asks.

“I’m so gross, don’t do that,” Marcus says.

“You aren’t,” Zhenya says. “You only taste like toothpaste.”

“I have brushed my teeth forty seven times today,” Marcus tells him, and Zhenya laughs and kisses his neck again, then tugs the sheets back to kiss his way down Marcus’s chest.

“I don’t think you’re gross,” Zhenya tells him, and goes back to kiss him, his lips trailing over Marcus’s skin. He stops at the gentle swell of Marcus’s abdomen, pushing his sweatpants out of the way. “Listen,” he whispers. “Stop being so hard on your daddy. He’s doing his best out here.”

Marcus laughs at him. “You’re tickling me,” he says.

“Mmm,” Zhenya says, and tugs Marcus’s sweatpants down out of his way.

“Oh,” Marcus says, realizing what Zhenya’s doing. He lifts his hips slightly, letting Zhenya tug his sweatpants off. “You can’t possibly think I’m sexy like this.”

“First of all,” Zhenya says. “I think you’re sexy always. Second of all, that’s my baby you’re carrying there, and I’m pretty sure you’re giving off hormones that are telling me you’re the absolute hottest thing on the planet right now.”

“Oh fuck off,” Marcus says, but it comes out breathy as Zhenya’s mouth brushes against his dick. Zhenya laughs at that, and it vibrates against his dick, and he groans.

Zhenya slides Marcus’s cock into his mouth, to the back of his throat, and sucks him off slow and teasing until Marcus is squirming and Zhenya has to hold him down by the hips. Marcus digs his fingers into the sheets when he comes, and Zhenya swallows, his throat working against it.

He sits up, wiping spit and come off his chin, fully hard. Marcus is still breathing hard, his eyes closed, naked now with the sheets tangled around his legs. Zhenya reaches out and rests his hand against the curve of Marcus’s belly, looking at him.

Marcus locks eyes with him, and swallows. “You should,” Marcus says. “You should jerk off.”

“On you?” Zhenya asks.

“Yeah,” Marcus says, also nodding his head.

Zhenya kneels next to Marcus on the bed, wraps his hand around his own cock and starts jerking himself off. Marcus watches him, his eyes half-lidded and his lower lip caught between his teeth.

He uses Marcus’s sweatpants to clean up after, and they curl up next to each other in bed, Marcus’s back against Zhenya’s chest. Zhenya moves his hand down to rest against the bump again.

“I can’t wait to meet him,” he says, after a long while of silence.

“Me either,” Marcus whispers back.

He puts his hand over Zhenya’s, linking their fingers together, as they fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> mike has a rut in section five and forces nicke into some stuff nicke doesn't necessarily want to do. nicke DOES participate, and it is implied that this is A Thing That Happens To Alphas by other people, and also that it happened to other people. it is painful and nicke does not necessarily enjoy it. that is ENTIRELY encapsulated in section five (called rut), and you can skip it if that doesn't jiggle your jello.
> 
>  
> 
> i'm on twitter at @notedgoon, probably still talking about jojo's bare ass


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